Lone Star Mountain Stick with the plan, we'll find another way in.

His call to the other wolves of the Keep had apparently yielded to him one of their newest members. @Buchanan was settling in and making his presence more known which was a relief to the Alpha. While he was pleased to see him respond to another scouting run it also made things a little more awkward. If Banner had been available (she hadn't called taking off for the day, after all!) she might have gone for a run with Buchanan but instead Stark got to him first.

Stark didn't truly think  the puppy would have settled on the mountain, but, it had a good vantage point. Pippin was a more unusual color - it would have made him stand out more, so, the dark male was hopeful that it might make him easier to spot from so high up. "I'm guessing you've run into Silas already. It's his brother Pippin, sister Larkspur, and father Mordecai who are missing." Stark explained. "Octavia too, but, my focus is on the Ostrega family first."  As much as he worried over her he couldn't abandon the family to her rage. 

Still, Stark fretted over where she was an what she was doing. It wasn't easy to take in stride but he was more hopeful. "Thank you, by the way, for coming with me." Stark hadn't been met with any hostility yet but that didn't mean the day wouldn't come.

When Stark's call had risen, Buchanan had went searching for the alpha and when he found Banner's brother, the assassin joined him on the trek outside of the Keep, making sure that he kept his pace slower than the alpha male's. It was an easy habit to fall into: it had been brutally conditioned into him and these days he found a measure of relief, a blanket of security in being obedient and submissive. Though Stark was not The Officer Buchanan did not discriminate and showed the other male the same level of obedience, submission and respect that he showed The Officer. Plus, being sweet on his sister as Buchanan was...well...the end game was that he didn't want to be on Stark's bad side, regardless. “He watched me hunt a few days ago.” Buchanan offered in affirmation when Stark spoke about Silas. The dark wraith didn't add that he'd been hunting for Banner's feather collection because it seemed irrelevant. The important thing was that, yes, he had met Silas. “Damn,” Buchanan drew in a quiet murmur when Stark informed him that Silas was missing his father, brother and sister. Of course, being ripped from his parents and any semblance of a normal childhood, Buchanan couldn't exactly sympathize with the boy as he didn't remember anything before The Officer, but he did feel pity for the young juvenile. No one deserved to feel that kind of loneliness. It had to be taxing.

Finding one of them was going to be hard enough, let alone all of them — the mysterious alpha female Octavia included; but they couldn't rush out and try to find all of them at once. It would never work. “Where are we starting?” He inquired, because they had to start somewhere, after all; and the more that he knew about the missing wolf they were starting their hunt for the better. “What happened to them? Was this caused by something or did it just happen on accident? Is there any place that they would have possibly gone to?” Buchanan caught himself after he fired off the questions, his jaw snapping close audibly. “I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to overstep boundaries by asking like that.” Habit. Apologize for asking questions because The Officer didn't tolerate questions. The only answer Buchanan had ever gotten to any question he'd dared ask was the elder's teeth around his throat.

“I want to help; besides I'm apart of the pack. That means being beneficial to and helping the pack in any way that I can,” He inhaled deeply and let it out. “I'm an exceptional tracker.” Yet, it was not boasting as he spoke it. Tracker. That was a nice way to put it. It sounded better than “assassin”, at any rate. The more he knew about his target, the better and there was very little that stopped Buchanan once he was on the trail. This was a mission, but not with the end game being death. Instead, the end game was to rescue, to bring back the lost and ...it was nice to put his very specific skill set to use for philanthropist work as opposed to the work that belonged to the grim reaper.

Stark was pleased to hear that the two had met each other - especially when presented with the notion that Buchanan had provided Silas with some guidance in a hunt. The boy had promise, that was for sure, and Stark was eager to see as he continued to grow his skill just how good he ended up being. Stark didn't think that he was necessarily the most understanding of Silas pain - he wasn't close to his other siblings, he wasn't close with his father, all he had was Banner to really make him get it. He had Octavia, too, but, he didn't have her anymore. Right now it was easier to imagine her just being gone - or nothing, to give him a chance to focus on the Ostregas entirely. 

Stark gave him a sideways glance as he prattled off his thoughts and questions, the look ending in a grim smile. "You're good, I like your thought process there." He hummed out, considering the proper answers for awhile. "So his parents lead a pack in the Lost Creek Hollow but had to move because of a terrible storm that made the land uninhabitable. I figure he'd go where he was born, the Hollow is out to the south some though." It was what Mordecai had explained to him after all. "Pippin ran off because of some sort of altercation - Octavia attacked Harlyn thinking she'd attacked Tambourine, Mordecai defending his mate, Pippin moved to attack Tambourine in retaliation and Octavia attacked him." It was such a ridiculous, overwhelming sort of thing to even consider. Why attack a puppy? Ever?

"It's the clusterfuck that lead to me claiming the pack." He explained swiftly. "And I'm trying to repair the damage and give the Keep a chance to really flourish." For a moment he looked to the male, trying to garner his response to the entire situation. He didn't know how much Banner had given as means of an explanation but he felt like being honest was the best move. "I'm not the kind of man to make you do something you aren't interested in - but it means a lot to me and I'm sure to Harlyn too that you'd help track them down."

Buchanan offered his alpha a sage nod of thanks with a slight twitch of his lips grimly when Stark complimented him on his thought processes and that he was good. Perhaps there was silver linings to be found in what The Officer had forged him into, but not often. In this instance, he might actually be able to help. Maybe. It depended upon so much and the Wilds were large and vast, and inhabited by a lot of packs spread throughout. “Do you think he'd remember the way?” It was good, though. They had some direction to start in, a possible place to begin their search. Of course, there was a possibility he had never made it that far: another pack could have swept him up or...worse, but Buchanan didn't linger upon that thought for too long.

His job wasn't to be a pessimist: it was to help track down the missing Keep members. “Hmm,” Buchanan drew in thought as he tried to make the connection whether the child had taken off because he was scared or angry or perhaps both. It seemed likely that he would flee where he was most comfortable, which as Stark said, was probably his birth territory. “Children seek comfort in what is familiar, it makes sense that he'd try to go back to his birth place. It's a good idea to try to retrace his possible steps.” Buchanan knew that if he hadn't been so utterly terrified of The Officer and what he'd do to him when he caught him he would have tried to run away, but his terror forced him to stay, to accept The Officer's brutality and let him twist and control him until he was barely even an individual. He had needed The Officer's commanding voice in his ear to tell him what to do besides the archaic need to survive. He was working on that. It was a slow process and he couldn't deny that it felt good (relieving even) to have a mission something that he was familiar with. It was even better that it didn't require him to kill anyone.

“Sounds like you've had a rough run of things,” Buchanan murmured in quiet contemplation, when Stark explained that the whole altercation was what had led him to claim the pack. Which only made sense, especially if it's alpha female was missing, too. Someone had needed to step up to the plate, take up the mantle or else the Keep would have likely ceased to exist.

It was an interesting question to consider - Stark had no idea how old the puppy had been when the family had moved on. Of the adults that had come into the pack only Harlyn was left now. Shikoba, Little Voice, Mordecai - they were gone, although the dark male held out hope that Mordecai was just out looking for his son. It just left Stark with more questions than answers though and unfortunately he didn't have them. "He might. Or he may just be stumbling along until he found it." Stark shrugged, blue eyes sweeping across the land for a moment. 

To Buchanan's statement Stark couldn't confirm or deny anything - not directly. He hadn't had the worst time of it, he'd just kept plodding along, and for a lot of people it would be a point of pride to consider themselves leading a pack. For Stark it was just the next little thing, it was just the logical step for him and for the Keep. Otherwise they might have disbanded and he wasn't willing to disrupt all their lives that way. "I think things will get better now." He said quietly. "Be it by sheer dumb luck or stubbornness, that's still left to see." He offered the male a grim smile, uncertain of the male's opinion on things. 

"Have you explored much of the lands around here?" He asked curiously, trying not to be too obvious in his interest in the male. 

“Anything's a possibility,” Buchanan remarked in quiet agreement when Stark mentioned that Pippin might have just stumbled across it. Nothing was set in stone or eliminated until the end of the line, where ever that might lead them. With children it was harder to say...and the chances of their survival was significantly lower unless they were able to properly hunt for and protect themselves. This lowered the odds even more, but as Buchanan was not aware of Pippin's age this was harder for him to calculate, harder for him to decipher. They kept up an even pace, though Buchanan was conscious to keep his pace slower than Stark's so he fell slightly behind the Alpha. He was a subordinate, after all, and the subjugate was more comfortable in his role of Omega.

Buchanan was quiet when Stark made mention that things would get better for the Keep, though he offered a silent nod despite that the alpha male was probably likely to miss it. He wasn't sure what to say, if anything at all. His belief was that if the Alpha believed it then the subordinates would follow. It wasn't their job to question their superiors but trust them to lead them in the right direction. Stark's belief was good enough for Buchanan, at least.

Stark's question caused Buchanan's ears to raise atop his crown for a few seconds before they settled back to rest at half mast atop his skull, a naturally submissive posture for his ears, again drawing comfort from his believed place in the world: as it's low life. “A little,” He admitted after a few seconds. “I've explored some of the Hinterlands and territories around the Keep.” It was how he'd met Banner, after all and there was no contest that it was easily the best choice of his life: gifting her the crane and having ...something of a conversation with her. Yet, he didn't dare speak this to Stark who was her brother as well as their Alpha. He was at war with his own nature as he was torn between falling in love with Banner, who was recently minted the Keep's Beta and wanting to conform to his omega nature. The lines were too often blurred (though Buchanan would come to learn that in the future he didn't stress himself out too much with over-thinking the line between lover/husband and subordinate, thankfully).